frankly… Episode 90: 20 Years and Counting for the Movement Music Festival

In this episode of frankly…

The transcript below is AI-generated and may contain minor inaccuracies. Tune in to the episode audio to hear the full conversation! 

Transcript

Dan

Hello and welcome to frankly. Today I am joined by co-host Brent Snavely, who’s Franco’s VP of Media Relations, and also Sam Fotias, who is Director of Operations for Paxahau, which is the company behind some of Detroit’s biggest landmark events every year. So Pax Ahao has owned and produced the Movement Festival going into their 20th year of that role and then also works as a producer for the Detroit Jazz Fest on the other end of the summer. So they’ve really got a hold on both ends of summertime in Detroit with Movement over Memorial Day weekend and then Jazz Fest over Labor Day. So we talked with Sam about, what it means to be, I guess, trusted with the ownership and the production of those two major events that have such a tie to Detroit’s musical heritage, culture, all of these things, what it’s looked like to produce events, you know, coming into and out of COVID over these last five, six years. And some of the things on the operational and marketing side that go into these massive events that really, really shape the summer here in the city. So with that, we’ll turn it over to Sam and hope you enjoy the interview. Hi, Sam. Welcome to Frankly. Thanks for stopping by today.

Sam

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it, gentlemen.

Dan

Yeah. So We always kick off with kind of the same question here, but tell us a little bit about yourself. What’s your background, the background of Paxahau, and kind of where did you get to where you are today?

Sam

Well, I am the director of operations for Paxahau. Paxahau is a entertainment and electronic music production company based here in Detroit. In 2026, we’re celebrating our 28th year of being in business here in the city of Detroit, doing a, the best term is a multifaceted production company. Our primary objective is we produce around 75 to 80 different electronic music events throughout the year in the city. ranging in capacity from 300 to 3,000 people, depending on the act and their draw and stuff. And then we own and operate the Movement Electronic Music Festival, which 2026 is our 20th consecutive year producing that event. As many people may or may not be aware, that is a festival that celebrates the history of techno, which is a genre that was created here in Detroit. and its global impact. We can get a little more into that as we get further into the discussion. And then the other phase of our organization is our contract work, which we are the operations and production arm for the Detroit Jazz Fest. We have been since 2011. And then we’ve worked with various other clients throughout the year. Bottega Veneta, we produced their spring summer 2022 fashion show, which was here at the Michigan Theater Garage. We’ve done work with Shinola. We’re the agency of record for producing events for the various facets of Red Bull that do a lot of different stuff here in the city. We work with the DADA programming, the charity preview for the last few years. We’ve done stuff with Grand Prix. We produced the outdoor component of the first outdoor year of the Detroit Auto Show, which was at Harp Plaza. So we’ve kind of become a very nimble and agile, you know, contract production company. Afro Nation and Afro Future Festivals with, you know, Bedrock was our client on that and we did that over the last three years. So those are really kind of the big three facets of our organization. And we’re always looking for new projects to do also.

Brent

So that’s fascinating and unbelievable. I think that, you mentioned the 20th anniversary and I’d love to dive into that a little bit more for movement. Sure. You know, two-part question. Like looking back, if somebody had said you would still be producing movement 20 years later, what would you say? And then, you know, and then what what will the festival look like this year and how will you be honoring and communicating the 20th anniversary?

Sam

Well, that’s a thing. given how rapidly the electronic music industry has expanded over the last decade is astonishing. It has grown into a multi-billion dollar global industry over the last decade specifically, which is incredible. And at the time, excuse me, when we first started producing the event in 2006, we were one of the only electronic music festivals, let alone music festivals in the country. Coachella was very young at that time. Lollapalooza, I don’t think, was actually a set festival. I think it was still kind of vacillating between touring and whatever. Bonnaroo was around, things like that. So it’s you never look at it in regards to what are we going to do for our 10 year? What are we going to do for our 20 year? It’s just kind of taking it year by year because there’s been so much upheaval and growth and incredible, craziness within the entertainment industry as a whole, let alone in the genre of electronic music. So we’ve always kind of just taken it year by year and adapted and overcome as we’ve been able to. I will say that as opposed to a lot of those other festivals and the thing that makes us so special and to your second point of your question, I think our group feels very humbled and honored to be able to be the conduit of representative Movement is probably one of the only festivals in the country, let alone in the world, that is able to celebrate and elevate a contemporary genre of music in the city where it was created. And that is something that is incredibly special to us We love our city. We’re based here. Most of us were born and raised here. And to be able to welcome 10s of thousands of people from all over the world and the artists to a place that they hold in such high reverence and to be able to share our city with all of those people and welcome them and see how happy they are and provide this visceral experiences is incredibly special to us. So, this year is just kind of going to be a celebration of that. There is a the lineup kind of is a wide swath of people that we’ve had throughout the years and contemporary people that have that have come into the scene and grown within the scene in the last in the last few years. And I really think that the true thing is that the artists that play for us want to play here, right? It’s not a paycheck. It is not a, just another thing on the list. Like they want to play here because of the legitimacy of the event, our tenure within the global electronic music sphere, and what it means to play in Detroit and hold a crowd in Detroit and wow a crowd in Detroit because it’s a lot different than playing in other cities.

Dan

Yeah, And you talk about the heritage of EDM here on the front side of the summer, but then you also mentioned Jazz Fest on kind of the second-half going into Labor Day. Very different, very different styles of music and different events. And there’s a lot of differences between the two, but jazz also has a pretty deep heritage in the city here.

Sam

Absolutely.

Dan

So how do you maybe look at those similarly or differently, or how do you approach them differently to kind of honor that heritage on both ends?

Sam

Well, for us, the real catharsis came back in 2010 when Gretchen Vallade, God rest your soul, first came to us and we were like, this doesn’t really Okay, jazz, And I mean, I’ve been fortunate to have been exposed to a lot of different genres of music while I was growing up. And I had players that I liked, But getting to know Gretchen and, her background, given, her position in life, coming from an incredibly affluent family, the Carhartt heiress and stuff, and her being exposed to this new American art form of music when she was young, jazz, and being so passionate about it and so passionate about it that she deviated from, a lot of her expected kind of paths. and sought out these artists and wanted to spend time with them and wanted to go see them play and went to the underground places to see them play. And Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, like all of these amazing artists that she knew and saw play and everything. And it clicked for us that she was just like us. Just like us in the late 80s and early 90s, like being kids and, being exposed to this new form of music that was so oblique and original and just needing more of it, wanting to see and be exposed to more of it and seeing the culture and being wanting to be a part of the culture and wanting to contribute to the culture and stuff. And we’re like, we’re the same.

Dan

Yeah.

Sam

You know, like we, are the same type of people. And we have this reverence. And the fact that they’re literally 2 American art forms of music that just exist in different generations, that was something that really we’re like, okay, this makes sense. And so the relationship has just gotten stronger and stronger. And it’s a facet of our operational structure that we really enjoy.

Dan

Yeah, it’s just it’s so cool to be kind of that bookend to the summer and to have that have that presence on both sides.

Sam

It’s a nice way to wind down.

Dan

The 2 landmarks of Detroit summer. It’s all there.

Sam

Yeah, yeah. And they’re I think they’re in their 48th year this year. So which is incredible. Very cool.

Dan

So I want to go back to something a little that you mentioned a little bit ago, just kind of overcoming obstacles over these last 20 years. I think probably the most obvious one that sticks out is, COVID 2020 and what that did to events and what’s happened in the, what, five, six years since. But talk about that a little bit. Like what, how, did the approach to live events more generally just change for you?

Sam

I mean, I mean, that was, that was, that was a crazy time, It all happened in a very kind of, in the beginning, a very gradual manner. I mean, I remember the first festival to really shut down and cancel was Ultra in March of that year, which takes place in Miami at the end of March. And until that point, it was all just like, oh, Chinese virus, whatever. Everybody was just kind of like hahaha, and then Ultra was the first one to cancel. And that’s when everybody kind of had a, pardon my French and oh **** moment, you know, because it made things very real. And go ahead, I’m sorry.

Dan

I was just going to say, I’m just thinking about it. You’re not too far behind that them though.

Sam

Correct. We’re about 8 weeks after them. And And in between us was Coachella, and I think everybody was kind of waiting to see what was going to happen and what was going to happen in the government. And then it just, it was like dominoes. And the funny thing looking back at it is, as those dominoes started falling and different municipalities started enacting different criteria, okay, we’re going to, It’s a meme now, but everybody was like 2 weeks flatten the curve, and that was the first scramble, right? Was okay, get on the phone with the city administration. And what we’re going to do is I got on the phone with Chris Collins, who’s the president and artistic director of Jazz Fest. because they’re in September. And when all these events were shutting down in March, it was still like, oh, we’re going to be fine in September. It seems so far away. I got with him and then I got with Heart Plaza and got with the city and negotiated to move our movement permit from May to the weekend after Jazz Fest and to basically share infrastructure with them so that, you know, we would just push our ticket holders to that weekend for those that couldn’t attend, we’d refund them and whatever. And that was the plan, right? Like, we’ll just push everything and all the agents and the contractors, everybody was scrambling because there was this still this incredibly powerful naivete in this is temporary, right? And the grimness that settled in through the summer of, okay, this is going to be around a lot longer than we had anticipated. And watching specifically in the live events industry, your revenue just deteriorating, right? We couldn’t do other events. And meanwhile, we’re sitting on a huge chunk of money from ticket holders that had purchased tickets. for a movement and you can’t spend that money because it’s not our money at that point because we haven’t executed an event, right? So there are people that did spend that money, that really put themselves in a really big problem. But, and then as time went on, there was the PPE stuff and, obviously we did that. And then there was one of the things that really kind of Helped us out a lot was we established what we did during movement instead of instead of obviously executing we did a live stream and it got a lot of it got a lot of traction because it was very early on in the live streaming trend that happened. And we ended up signing a partnership deal with Twitch because it had gotten so much traction. And it was a six-month deal, and it was a very substantial amount of money, a decent chunk, right? So it allowed us to keep our staff on payroll. We built a studio in our warehouse. We kind of went there clandestinely because you weren’t supposed to gather. And we actually paid artists or DJs to either come in and stream from our studio or we were able to pay artists in Europe and stuff to do a stream and everything. And that really helped us out. And then the Neva thing, the Save Our Stages, the independent entertainment industry thing, happened, which was huge. And that was a system that was created because not everybody’s a Live Nation or an AEG. There’s a lot of independent venue owners and produced, production companies that were kind of out in the wind like us. And so it was a grant program for several billion dollars that basically you could apply to. And it gave you up to 98% of your gross revenue the year before COVID.

Dan

Wow.

Sam

Right. And so that was a shot, a huge shot in the, and that really allowed us to kind of like go through the rest of COVID and then come out, refund ticket purchasers. full refund. And then those that decided to keep their money with us in order to transfer it into the next year. And that was outstanding. On the other end of it, there was Jazz Fest who, came to us and, they have an endowment. And at the time, Gretchen was still alive and she was like, I want to do something. I don’t want to do this. where we’re, where we are, having people send us recordings or whatever, whatever. So I think, and I would have to check this, we were one of the only festivals on the planet at the time, 2020 and 2021, where we actually, we created a COVID bubble in the Renaissance Center, in the hotel. And we set up 3 total television level production studios in the ballrooms and flew in artists, Robert Glasper, Herbie Hancock, Sun Ra Orchestra, Kurt Elling, I mean, not like chintzy artists, you know what I mean? And None of the crew could leave the hotel. we did testing and, ultraviolet lights and, sanitation and whatever. And that was the first time that the Jazz Fest ever live streamed. And it was a true live stream. Like, and I think we were one of the only festivals on the planet that actually did that. It did like 3 million views. That’s incredible. You know, viewers. And And that was a huge thing, not only in regards to maintaining our, monetary scenario, but also being a part of something that when there was nothing going on in the entertainment industry in the city, being able to pay the IATSE workers and pay the stage hands and the stage managers and the crews and, it was just, it was really something cool to be a part of.

Dan

Yeah. that’s something else I was thinking about. You say nothing else going on in the city at that time. Like coming out of that on the other end of it, I mean, What do you see in even just audience members, like just the feeling of getting back in personal connection with people at live events? Like, are you seeing the same or more enthusiasm afterwards or are people picking up where they left off?

Sam

That first year when we opened the gates at Movement, the energy was, I had never felt anything like that. It almost makes me choke up a little bit. It’s really, I mean, it was astounding. It was probably one of the best in the 20-year runs. It was probably one of the best experiences. Just being able to be back at it and everybody was so happy and the site looked amazing. amazing. I mean, we had so much time to plan and tweak and make changes and straighten things out and whatever. And, from the artist to the attendees, it was incredible. how things have progressed since then are definitely interesting. I think that since then, not necessarily by any doing of our own, but I just feel that societal malaise in general, the rise of influence culture, influencer culture, and just kind of how people approach in mass entertainment these days, like since then, since COVID, has changed tremendously. the culture and the energy on the dance floor is a lot different. And it continues to evolve in ways that probably because I’m so old that I just don’t identify with. You know what I mean?

Brent

Yeah.

Sam

So that’s been a real observation lately.

Dan

I mean, you see it at any concert, but like just more recording.

Sam

For sure. And it’s a bummer, but I mean, it is what it is. I don’t think there’s any change. It’s how people enjoy it now, I guess.

Dan

More power to them. For sure.

Brent

Well, I thought I would, so you made it through the COVID period and adapted A lot. And I kind of forgot about some of those things. It’s an interesting reminder. But in addition to the culture on the, attendees changing, your challenges are changing too.

Sam

Yeah.

Brent

So I was just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on what are the complexities and sort of top challenges that you have to navigate through this year or in recent years as the festival continues to change.

Sam

Well, it’s really interesting that you bring that up because over the up until COVID, things had, the festival industry by nature had grown so much and, new, for lack of a better term, threats and challenges arise every year. I think we’re all aware of the types of people that exist and, challenges to large-scale events from a safety level and stuff. And I had grown a bit calloused to that stuff just because I was in it, twice a year with major festivals every year and everything. And then COVID came and I had two years off, being able to spend time with my family on Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend and not really think about things. And to your point, Brent, that first year, regardless of the amazing energy, I was a bit anxious. because I had kind of, I guess, not, I don’t want to say let my guard down, but I hadn’t been presented with, having to think about, God forbid, an active shooter or vehicular terrorism or a suspicious bag or, any kind of scenario like that, which are always top of mind. obviously we went through our normal review of our safety plan and tabletop exercises and stuff, but actually standing on site and realizing that there’s 10s of thousands of people here and that it kind of like rattled me a little bit that first night. I was like, oh my God,

Brent

and if I could, and I bet, especially for movement and the music and that culture, You have a tricky balancing act of needing to maintain safety and put safety protocols in place so that it’s safe and you can deal with a situation like that. But the freedom of that culture is so important too, and the sense of freedom. How do you navigate that?

Sam

It’s an interesting thing, and I think I know what you’re trying to touch on. We are very fortunate that along with the tenure of our event, being so old and being so established, as opposed to other electronic music events that happen around the country, our largest demographic is 25 to 35 years old, which is unheard of in electronic music. Most other events are 16 to 21, 18 to 21. And when you have a younger demographic, you have them being a lot more irresponsible in regards to the things that they’re ingesting or the things that they’re engaging in and stuff like that. And our crowd’s old. They’re responsible. They look after each other. We have not, you know, for the most part, most of our hospital transports are twisted ankles. And, you know, if it’s hot, you know, like heat exposure and things like that. So, but at the same time, we work very closely with the health department. We work very closely with fire and police in regards to emerging threats that they’re seeing through various chatter, through the things that they monitor and everything like that. We have a direct connection to Public Safety Command Center. We have a direct connection to the Rock Security Command Center downtown, and there are 3,500 cameras down here. We have an on-site weather person. We have the fire marshal’s on site, DPD, TAC ops is on site. We’re talking in my chat. I have a chat forum with Homeland Security, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, State Police, and they’re monitoring everything, social media chatter in a geo-fenced area all around downtown Detroit. involving several public safety agencies. So there’s, it’s not only, it’s not only our event, like our event is kind of seen as an anchor. And then there’s the peripheral zones that spread outward from the event because our attendees have to walk through the core business district from their hotels, from the parking garages. There’s other things going on in the city, games, concerts at other venues and things. So all of those things have to interlock together. in order to create a safe environment, not only for us, but the other residents of the city, the other visitors that are coming in for other events and everything. So that being said, we value and treasure the relationship and the rapport that we have with the city of Detroit and all the public safety agencies. And again, are honored to be able to be at the table so that we can dovetail our event seamlessly into the other things that are going on in the city. Because like I said, having been born and raised here and operating here, it’s incredibly apparent to us unfortunately, sometimes how under-resourced the public safety divisions of the city are or is, or I don’t know how that’s properly said. But, we want to be stewards of the city. We want to strengthen our relationship with the city. We do not want to be an impediment on them. So, and, you know, to their credit, they work so well with us in regards to understanding the demographic, understanding the music, understand how loud it’s going to be. City of Windsor doesn’t really like us, but you know, it’s really incredible. when you take a step back and think about it, like how nurturing they have been and understanding and open to our ideas and how we can help each other to achieve that.

Brent

You touched on the age demographic, touch on the Yeah, I mean, the well, that’s it look like

Sam

that’s another thing because of because of how much electronic music has grown over the last 10 years. And specifically, we’re going to call it quote unquote underground music, right? There’s like EDM and commercial electronic music and stuff, but the underground stuff, which it’s kind of like what we’re known for, which is is actually becoming bigger than the EDM stuff now. Because of that, there’s a lot of events that have spurred up nationally and regionally and stuff, which obviously impacts ticket sales and everything. But, most of our people, most of our people are coming from Southwest United States, Western United States, a lot from Canada. We’ll see how that goes this year. I don’t really have access to that ticketing data right now. tons from South America, South America, Mexico, regions like that. Europe has teamed down a bit. It’s still pretty strong. I would say it’s gone from like 20 to 25% to around like between 12 and 15% from Europe. Just because of how crazy it is over there as well. I mean, they can see those artists, but again, it’s what we’re getting is those people that want to come to Detroit because it’s Detroit. You know what I mean?

Dan

Yeah, it’s the home of this music. Exactly. But 20 to 25% from Europe is a crazy number to begin with. It’s huge.

Sam

Yes, and that’s what it was in the early days. But it’s kind of going through this lateral shift now of where our ticket buyers are coming from and stuff. A lot from the region, tri-state, five-state region. Sure.

Brent

One more and then I’ll kick it back over to you, Dan. So I feel like we have to ask the… obligatory question of, looking at the festival this year, in its 20th year, I saw some of the Detroit’s historical artists are going to be playing this year. But who are the headliners or who are some of the artists that you and your team are really excited to be able to showcase this year?

Sam

So here’s the thing. I’m really excited. There’s DJ Harvey’s coming to play, which he doesn’t play a lot of festivals. And he’s an old school cat, kind of a free form, open format DJ, like house music and stuff. Obviously, Carl Cox, he hasn’t been with us. He was supposed to play for us last year and he had to pull out because he had surgery. Richie, obviously, since he’s moved overseas and stuff, he’s always kind of been a staple of the event and stuff. Carl’s doing, Carl Craig’s doing a live thing. He’s doing his Project 69 with Live, which he has not done in a very long time. And, you know, it’s just a, there’s a smattering of people and to your point and what I was talking about earlier is, yes, there are some semi-commercial kind of guys that are playing like Damdala and a few other ones. But what people need to understand is like we do not, they come to us, right? And through the years with groups like Skrillex and John Summit last year and and a lot of those acts like that, they see Detroit as a beacon of legitimacy, right? And they’ve made all these accomplishments and grown to the stratosphere and all these other levels, but coming to play here for them is a huge, intimidating thing. And because there’s the very real possibility that they feel that when they step on stage, there’s like nobody’s, what I mean? Like either it’s going to be a thin crowd or they’re really going to put them through the ringer. And so, and it’s great for us to provide a platform to expose people that, because at the end of the day, a lot of these guys are are ultimately very talented regardless of the genres of music. And they change the way they play when they come here. And so it’s always great to see that and be a part of that and to provide a vehicle of connection between two different parts of the scene that exist on separate but parallel tracks. And so, yeah, that’s cool.

Dan

Yeah. And some of that, I think, Maybe a question, we’re on the communications marketing side of things, so I have to imagine a lot of the people who want to go to Movement know about Movement. It has this heritage, it has this like status as like the peak of EDM festivals, but… How do you continue to tell that story? How do you reach people who are maybe just getting into it? Or what does that storytelling look like to really share what the experience is on the ground versus, like you said, other different types of festivals?

Sam

I mean, that’s becoming more and more difficult as things progress just in society in general. I mean, you guys are a PR firm, so I would imagine or assume that you see it in different industries as well. There’s just so much chatter out there. And people are getting information in so many weird and evolving ways, whether it’s, there are some communication conduits that my 16-year-old son is on that I’ve never even heard of. I’m like, what is that? And the way that they share information and talk about things and what, is deemed as watchable or absorbable and what isn’t. So trying to stay on top of all of that is incredibly difficult. And I have to give a lot of credit to our marketing and PR division, which is internal. We have a few external kind of companies that we work with, but it’s a group of individuals that are younger, led by an older Maureen, who you guys were talked to on the email, and just trying to keep up with it all, and finding ways to, whether it’s communicating via meme culture, or, finding new ways to get your information, to to the top of the hopper, I guess, as people are, people’s attention spans are so much shorter. What catches their attention? you can’t just do the video clips anymore, which we do those two as filler, but like they’re scheduled, not to use the term again, but they’re scheduled hopper of like the schedule for like all of our social media stuff that goes out and what the content is going to be and, strategically aligned with, when our tickets scales change and all of those things. It’s just you have to, because there’s so many other music festivals that are clawing at the same eyes and brains.

Dan

It’s a lot to cut through.

Sam

It is. It is. So I don’t know if I actually answered your question, but I just, there’s a lot there. And because I’m not directly involved in that department, it’s a little difficult for me to get into the minutia.

Dan

No, it makes sense. It makes sense. I think just to kind of close things out, looking back these past 20 years or further even in your career, think about something, I guess, that you would tell yourself as you were getting into this type of production. What’s a lesson you’ve learned that you want to, that you would have liked to have known back then?

Sam

Man, that’s a tough one, you know, because everything has happened so organically. You know when Jason and I, who kind of steer the company, when we started throwing underground parties back in the early 90s here in the city, this was not even something that was even dreamed about. Like, man, one day we’re going to throw a festival and it’s going to be great and whatever. It was literally just taking it day by day, opportunity by opportunity. And I honestly don’t know what I would tell myself because I don’t think for how long of it, how long we’ve been doing this now, I don’t think any piece of future knowledge could help past knowledge for how much things change and how drastically they change and how how impactful those changes can be. I guess I would just say, maintain the ability to adapt and improvise. And, one thing I would say, which we are incredibly fortunate for, and that is surround yourself, always surround yourself with great people. I cannot stress that enough, that the team at Paxahau is an incredible group of people who are all very passionate. It’s not a job to most of us. And I know that sounds cliche and dumb, like a live, laugh, love placard or something like that. But the energy inside of our office when we’re planning this because of the excitement that we have for something that we’ve planned for so long and being able to like see everybody’s faces when they walk on site and feel that energy of everybody on the dance floor and sound systems are bumping and the lighting looks great and the weather’s amazing and you’re surrounded by the cities, by the skyscrapers downtown. It’s incredible. So, and that comes from a great team, everybody being in lockstep, you know.

Brent

So I just got to say, I’m really thankful that you had the time to join us for this.

Sam

Since we had another hour.

Brent

I’ve been familiar with Paxahau and watching you guys manage this event for all of these years. And I think that the complexity that goes into producing it and growing it and maintaining it is not as well understood or appreciated as it could or should be, and I think this conversation’s been a great conversation to provide some insight into all of that.

Sam

Yeah, there’s a lot more. We can talk afterwards too, if you like.

Dan

Love to. I’ll have to get you back for Jazz Fest or something.

Sam

Awesome. Sounds great.

Brent

Definitely.

Dan

All right. Well, thanks again for coming in. Appreciate it.

Sam

Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it.

Dan

Thank you so much to Sam Fotias for joining us today here. Thanks to Brent for stepping in as a guest co-host. You know, anyone interested in learning more about Movement, which is happening May 23rd to the 25th this year in Hart Plaza in Detroit, check out their website. We’ll link it in the description here. And, you know, be on the lookout for any of the events that Sam mentioned that they’re producing throughout the year, but really these two landmark ones coming up this summer. At the time this goes live, we’re under a month out from movement, so it’s an exciting time in Detroit, and hope to see some of you there. But thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you next time.